Ripped Jeans

finally my nephew interrupted her to say,  “He wants to be called Ben. He’s a boy now. You can’t call him a girl if he’s a boy.” 

and right after that, she started using my pronouns and name correctly. i guess it kind of hits you hard when a 5 year old child calls you out, cause anytime i’d try to correct her she’d keep making the excuse, “It’s hard, I’m trying.” 

When I went home for my birthday this past week, my parents were using the right name/calling me Ben but using the wrong pronouns. When I gently reminded them of my pronouns, my step dad was incredibly defensive and yelled at me and said not to bring it up. The next day, (my actual birthday), I was alone with my 14 year old brother. I told him I was bummed, told him the story and asked if he wouldn’t mind trying to use the correct pronouns around our family to lead by example/encourage them. He was like yeah no problem dude! Layer that night, my mom used the wrong pronouns and my brother responded with “yeah, I think he would like that.” And looked at me and smiled and my mom responded using the correct pronouns.